When telephone switchboards became a labor battleground
In April 1968, workers in Milwaukee put the phone company on hold — twice.
It started with a wildcat strike April 3, 1968.
Installers and craftsmen at Wisconsin Telephone Co. walked off the job in Milwaukee, Racine, Green Bay and Marinette. The walkouts were over Wisconsin Telephone’s suspension of workers who refused to accept overtime assignments.
Part of the reason for all the overtime, the union told The Milwaukee Journal in an April 3 story, was the company’s anticipation of a nationwide strike against American Telephone & Telegraph and six of its member companies, including Wisconsin Telephone.
As many as 2,300 workers took part in the strike, which ended April 9 after Wisconsin Telephone agreed to halt the suspensions.
But that clash was just a prelude to the bigger drama.
Union members authorized a strike — the first nationwide telephone strike in 21 years — for April 12, but leaders postponed it until April 18, 1968, because they “did not want to add to the turbulence unleashed by the slaying of Dr. Martin Luther King,” The Journal reported on April 9.
On April 18, 200,000 AT&T employees, including about 7,500 in Wisconsin, walked off the job.
About 1,300 supervisors and other nonunion employees manned switchboards for 12 hours a day, filling in for 2,600 striking phone operators.
Both The Journal and Sentinel noted that most of the operators who went on strike were women, and most of the managers filling in for them were men.
“Don’t hang up if a man answers when you call information,” The Journal wrote April 19. “Although the positions are usually filled by women, male supervisors from other departments have taken over … “
On May 1, nearly two weeks after the strike began, the two sides reached an agreement on a new contract, providing better benefits and a wage increase of more than 19% over three years.
Although several union locals in Wisconsin rejected the deal, the threeyear contract was approved by a “small margin,” the union told the Sentinel in a May 6 story.
In the May 7 Sentinel, Wisconsin Telephone took out an ad thanking customers for their patience and promising that its mostly female workforce was now back on the line.
“The feminine ‘voice with a smile’ is back at our switchboards,” the ad read.